I look at life a bit differently, and like to post my weird thoughts. I like musicial instrument repair and woodworking. For trying to live a somewhat normal life, a lot of weird things happen to me. Instead of putting up with it, I post about it in this blog.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Draught of Living Death? Wait what?

So I was doing my usual mindless job today. In fact, it was even more mindless than usual today. Frankly, I had eight hours plus an hour for lunch to let my mind completely wander. During the day, I got to thinking about a scene in one of the Harry Potter movies. Something always bugged me about it.

Now, I know Harry Potter fans love to nitpick the books and movies. And even J.K. Rowling has admitted to some goof-ups in the early books. But there was one thing that bugged me. That would be the draught of living death.

It is first mentioned my potions Professor Snape in the first book. However, in the sixth book, Professor Horace Slughorn has his advanced potions class make some of the draught on their first day.

For those unfamiliar, here is the movie scene.

Now, there are a few differences between the movie and the book. The Harry Potter Wiki says this about the draught:

The Draught of Living Death is a very powerful sleeping potion.

So in the books it's referred to as a sleeping potion, but in the movie Slughorn says that Harry's just made potion was made so well it could kill everyone in the room. Either way, this is some really dangerous stuff.

It got me to thinking about my high school chemistry teacher. I won't mention his name, but he was an unlikable man who looked like an albino Irishman. He was also skinny on the verge of malnutrition, and had a very large nose.

I was thinking what if he taught our chemistry class how to make roofies or cyanide? I mean, isn't the draught of living death pretty much a really strong roofie? Why in the cold hell would you teach a bunch of teenagers how to make that kind of thing?

And let's look at the movie version of that potion. There are a number of Slytherins in that potions class including Draco Malfoy. Do you really want to teach that lot how to make a potion even stronger than cyanide? I mean, talk about bad ideas.

Can you imagine the chaos that would be caused by a teacher teaching that kind of thing in the muggle world? Why in the dickens would that sort of thing be allowed at Hogwarts? I really think Rowling missed the boat with that idea.

This lead me to something else. Who in the world would insure Hogwarts. After all the stuff that has happened to students, who would be their insurance carrier? I bet they get dropped from their carrier every year. Something to think about.